There's a well-known affliction that all gearheads suffer from, and scientists have finally started to study. it's called monofoottofloorpressuruos (Mono-foot-to-floor-pressurous). It's an ailment that affects the mind, forcing the afflicted to push their foot against the throttle pedal and into the carpeting of any vehicle they are driving in hopes of gaining more speed. It's a contagious ailment, especially when two or more people are involved while driving their cars on the same stretch of pavement at the same time.
Sometimes, however, the ailment is met with disappointment when there is no response from mashing said pedal to the floor. Such was the case with our Dart Sport we introduced in a previous issue. The woefully underpowered Slant Six was able to move the car, which made it a driver, but if you planned on any spirited driving, that thought was quickly erased from your mind when the light turned green, and you had to slowly ease the clutch out to get moving-a sad state of affairs for the Dart.
But fear not, this problem can be remedied with some elbow grease, and a shopping list of parts that can be had with simple phone calls. There's no big secret about what it takes to swap a V-8 in place where a six-cylinder used to reside. You can either shop the swap meets, find the required parts in your buddy's shed, or you can make a few phone calls to the manufacturer that have the parts you need.
But how hard is the swap? Well, it depends on how nice you want the finished job to look. If you never plan to open the hood at a cruise night, you won't clean or paint anything, then work-time will be short. But who doesn't want to show off their engine at a race or cruise night? So we decided to take the plunge and make the underhood of the Sport look better than the outside of the car-for now.
Follow along, and we'll show you what it took to make a terribly underpowered car finally get out of its own way.
First thing needed was an...
First thing needed was an engine. This 360 spent a couple years under the hood of our Valiant, and since it ran well, didn't smoke, or make noise, we figured we would clean it up and re-use it.
After cleaning the engine,...
After cleaning the engine, we gave it a good coat of rattle-can orange. Before we did, we taped over the intake-mating area, put the gaskets and intake in place, and outlined the intake on the gaskets and tape.
Afterward, we cut out the...
Afterward, we cut out the tape and gaskets on the line, and made sure any exposed head surface was painted.
After the intake and the valve...
After the intake and the valve covers were cleaned, they and the accessory items, such as the Flowtech headers and Pertronix Flame-Thrower distributor, were installed.
In our case, the Sport was...
In our case, the Sport was equipped with a floor-shifted, three-speed transmission. We scored a freebie from a friend, who gave us an aluminum-case OD unit. Luckily, the transmission came with linkage rods and a shifter mounting plate. We took the side cover off, checked it out, cleaned it up, and used it.
Now we had to get the old...
Now we had to get the old engine and transmission out of the car. Since we had access to a lift, we were able to use a US Car Tools' engine dolly cart. This is a slick tool to raise the car up. Simply put the cradle under the engine and transmission, unhook everything, and raise the car. We literally had the engine and transmission out in an hour.